Archive for September, 2017

I’ve been watching with particular anguish the devastating impact of Hurricane Harvey on the Houston community. Being a dog person I worry for the welfare of dogs that have been caught up in this catastrophe. And so, in the month of September the National Dog Agility league will donate ALL income to the Houston Humane Society[1].

Okay, to be real, the income for the NDAL is several hundred dollars each month. The NDAL is not an agility organization that has worried over great profits. We do agility for fun and recreation with like-minded agility people. I might have ambition to do more for dogs (and other animals) in Houston, but I’m an old man who lives on his Social Security check. So, this is what I can do.

If you’ve ever considered playing with us… we welcome new clubs and individuals that might want to play with us in September.

Overview of the NDAL

We do “league play”. League scores are made up of the top five scores for dogs in each franchise (no matter how many dogs they run in each game). If you can’t put together at least five dogs, it’s no worry. You’ll surely have fun running the courses.

Cost

Each club pays only $1 / run / dog as a recording fee.

The biggest initial expense for each club is registration for individual dogs. This costs $10. And income for dogs registered in September WILL go to the Houston Human society. You can find the dog registration form here:

YouTube

Most of our league performances include a link to a YouTube recording. There’s actually a field in the scorekeeping worksheet for the YouTube URL. If you play with us in September we would be greatly impressed if you include a link to YouTube. Watching other players from around the world is surely half the fun. The recording will exist forever in the results for that game or course!

Leagues

At the risk of heaping a lot on you at once … We run four ongoing leagues that are based on a) The size of the working space; and b) the level of challenge.

Most of our franchise clubs compete in more than one of the leagues. A few of the teams compete in all four! Course are closely nested, making it fairly easy to transition from league-to-league as a single event.

Below I will share with you posts of our August 2017 results. Drill down a bit… and you can find the YouTube recordings of nearly every agility performance! Each of these also includes a preview of the courses we are running in September.

Jumping into the League

If you need ANY help participating in September, please don’t hesitate to contact the NDAL League Secretary: Bud Houston ~ Houston.bud@gmail.com.

Rules

NDAL rules for performance most closely resemble USDAA and TDAA rules. Each club is expected to supply their own judge(s) who should be expected to read and understand these simple rules for agility performance.

Questions comments & impassioned speeches to Bud Houston Houston.Bud@gmail.com. Visit our web store: www.dogagility.org/newstore. You’ll find in the web store The Book of Agility Games, a comprehensive reference to all manner of agility games played for competition and fun around the world.

[1] I saw a Facebook post by Mary Jo Sminkey recommending the Houston Human Society for donations. We want any money to go where it might do the most good.